Fascination
by AlwaysPadfoot
Summary: AU. "Help in Slytherin House doesn't come free you know." "I know that, but I doubt you're going to need help with your work."


**Fascination**

**AlwaysPadfoot**

* * *

**AN**: Prompt: Write about a rare pair of Slytherins. (rain, happy meal, pregnant)

* * *

Tracey Davis sat quietly at the Slytherin table. She'd been here three months now and as far as she was aware she wouldn't be returning to the time she had come from. It had been quite a shock to end up here of all places, since it really seemed to have no significance to her or her future or that future. It was just normal Hogwarts, well, mostly. Slytherin house at this time seemed to be caught up in a hell of a lot of politics and Tracey, being an orphan now with no political leanings, managed to stay well out of it.

Back in good ol' 1996, Tracey's mother and stepfather had been both Pureblood. The last year had been dismal to say the least. Her father Callum Davis, a Muggleborn, had been killed in the November of her fifth year. Despite wanting to come home, her mother insisted she stay at Hogwarts. Three months later, Tracey had special permission to leave Hogwarts to attend her mother's and ancient step-father, Joshua Farley's wedding.

The night of the wedding had indeed been enlightening of her new position, so to speak, within the family.

From then on, so much as even breathing loudly in her step-fathers presence got her into trouble. Tracey would never admit it to anyone, but every night she spent at home left she was on edge, every moment she spent in the same room with her step-father had her unnerved, despite his old age. The man was so old he was attending Hogwarts now, two years below Tracey. It made her feel slightly sick that Farley had been sixty-sevenish when he married mum, who was thirty years his junior. She was particularly disturbed by his desire for her Mum to become pregnant, even though Tracey knew she could no longer have a child.

"Morning Davis," Alphard Black said, as he sat down opposite Tracey with his Daily Prophet in hand, "Where's Riddle this morning?"

"Funny, I thought it was you that shared a dorm with him not me," she responded, spreading jam across a slice of toast with a grin. Tracey had arrived in the November of sixth year, with not a clue how, but she found it surprisingly easy to find friends, despite the sudden lack of girls in Slytherin. She was the only one. Now, midway through through the year, she felt like she'd always been there and it was unusually quieter than the normal Saturday morning.

"Yeah, but I thought he might have been into breakfast and mentioned since he was gone when I woke," Alphard retorted.

"If I was going to hazard a guess Alphie, I'd say Riddle was in the library," she guessed. Tom Riddle had to be the strangest boy Tracey had ever met, but he was hands down the cleverest and a definite shoe-in for Head-Boy. It wouldn't surprise her in the slightest if Tom was in the library, the kid took all five electives and she always saw him with books that weren't on the curriculum for any of his classes.

Tracey's attention was drawn back to Alphard as he crinkled his nose and helped himself to some sausages and toast. She borrowed his prophet whilst he finished his food, flicking through it until she reached the sport section, which was the only vaguely entertaining part of the paper. She cast her eyes over the housing advertisements, but she knew that she was going to be relocated by Hogwarts for the Summer anyway. Besides, she simply had no money to go anywhere else. Sighing, she stared up at the ceiling of the Great Hall, which was mimicking the rain outside, silently deciding that she would try and get most of her work done today so she could sleep in tomorrow.

Once Alphard finished his breakfast, they headed out into the entrance hall, where Tracey made her way up to the library and he returned to the Dungeons to talk to Slughorn about their most recent Potions assignment.

Upon reaching the library, Tracey found Tom Riddle tucked away between the restricted section and Divination shelves.

"Can I help you, Miss Davis?"

He called out before she'd even made her presence known and she sighed, "I really wish you wouldn't call me 'Miss Davis', it makes me feel like a teacher, or like you're a teacher. Either way, if you can cut it to Davis or perhaps even Tracey that would be great, thanks Tom."

Tom's head lifted from his book on Ancient Runic Temples and eyed Tracey skeptically, his lips pursed, "Fine, what is it you want?"

It was clear that Tom was in an irritable mood today, but Tracey wasn't about to forget about his promise to help her with her Ancient Runes work.

"You said yesterday, in the Common Room, that you'd give me a hand with my Rune translations for Monday," she smiled.

"Oh right, that," he muttered, "I expected you'd want to do it tomorrow. Help in Slytherin House doesn't come free you know."

"I know that, but I doubt you're going to need help with your work," she replied.

"No," Tom said, his lips twitching into a smirk, "What about if I exchange my wisdom and good knowledge for something else?"

"For example?"

"Say I help you with Runes and you answer five questions."

Tracey frowned, "Five questions on what?"

"Yourself."

She blanched ever so slightly, why would Tom want to ask her questions? Even so she found herself considering it, besides Tom didn't know she was from the future, he wouldn't ask anything like that so what should she worry about. She gritted her teeth, "Deal, but let's do the Runes first."

As promised, Tom guided her through the Rune Translations and twenty minutes later Tracey was putting the final touches on her assignment, before she closed her textbook and rolled the work away in her bag. For some reason she was nervous about his questions, but she reached out for a little Gryffindor bravado and turned to him.

"Ready?" He asked.

"Of course," she scoffed. He pulled out his wand and cast a series of spells around the desk, she stared at him.

"Okay Tracey," he said, "Why did you appear mid-November here at Hogwarts?"

"Family tragedy," she answered.

Tom quirked a smile, "You're lying."

Tracey's eyes narrowed. She was indeed lying, but she didn't really know why she appeared here, just that it happened and that she ended up in 1943. Tom appeared to be waiting for another answer so she huffed and replied, "Fine, I don't know why I appeared here."

"You don't know?" Tom asked curiously.

"Nope," Tracey said, "And that was question number two."

"Clever," he replied, although he seemed annoyed to have lost a question, "If it wasn't a family tragedy, then what's happened to your family now?"

"My Dad died the year before last in November, my Mum is living with my ancient step-father."

"So if your Mum's alive and you have a step-dad, why didn't you go back to them at Christmas?"

"I couldn't," Tracey said quietly, "Besides my step-dad's a fucking lunatic."

"Explain," Tom motioned to her to continue and clarifying, "About your step-dad that is."

"That counts as a question," she clarified, "He's thirty years older than my Mum, and that kind of freaks me out. Plus my Dad died and then three months later they were getting married, and he was. He was... violent and hated my very existence."

"And your use of past tense is because?"

"Fuck Tom, what's your sudden interest for?"

Tracey scowled, her annoyance at Tom's curiosity clearly showing in her angry tone. He simply grinned, his bloody-calm demeanour didn't even twitch as her voice raised in pitch.

"Why did you use past tense?" He repeated.

Her mind raced for a second before she settled on an answer, "Because I don't live with them any longer."

Tracey stood up and Tom looked like he was about to contest her exit. She brushed past him, her bag over her shoulder, "You've used all your questions. Thanks for the Runes help."

* * *

It wasn't until late March that Tracey really had another confrontation, so to speak, with Tom Riddle. She was up really late in the Slytherin Common Room working on both her Divination and Transfiguration essays simultaneously.

Sitting back in her chair, she read through her Divination, her stomach rumbling now. Her attention wandered slightly to her hunger. She smiled when memories of her father floated to the forefront of her mind, the way he would take her to a Muggle fast food chain for a Happy Meal after she'd finished primary school all those years ago. With a small sigh she propped her feet up on the desk and focused entirely on her essay, wanting to go to bed as soon as possible. Her eyelids were drooping.

Tracey was abruptly woken up when she heard the grinding of the Common Room wall. Quickly she grabbed her essay which had fallen to the floor and tried to focus on reading it. She feared it looked fake, but even so Abraxas Malfoy from her year and Wilhelm Crabbe from the year below walked past without so much as a second look towards her. She crinkled her nose as many boys from the surrounding years returned to the Common Room and once she checked her watch, she couldn't think of a single reason why they were all coming back after one o'clock at night.

Just when she thought they'd all returned, the wall opened once more and Tom Riddle returned to the Common Room, his dark eyes immediately fell to Tracey.

"What are you still doing up, Davis?"

"If you must know, I have two essays to finish," she replied before adding sarcastically, "It seems your little study group has been up late working too."

Tom smirked and imediately she knew he wouldn't tell her exactly where the boys had been tonight, "Need any help?"

"Yeah you could proofread –" Tracey stopped, "Wait a minute. What are you going to want in return?"

He shrugged, "I haven't decided yet."

Tracey reluctantly pushed over her Divination essay and they sat in silence whilst she finished her essay for Dumbledore.

"Conjuration doesn't seem so hard, but sometimes I don't understand why you can bring an object into being and then with vanishing you can make something non-being," she frowned, "I mean how can you bring the object in non-being back into being and know it is exactly the same item."

"Tracey," Tom said, ignoring her question, "I know."

She froze, her heart suddenly beating abnormally fast, "Sorry, you know what?"

He smiled again, "I know you're from the future."

Tracey was almost lost for words but she soon found them again, "You're mad, Riddle."

She got up, grabbed her essays and headed towards the dorms. Unfortunately, Tom caught up and pinned her in against the wall, the essays floating to the floor at her feet.

"Did you really think no one would find out? What have you come here for? Did you think you could change things?"

He didn't speak fast; he stood with his arms on either side of her, one eyebrow raised in derision.

Tracey's mind was in overdrive, too busy trying to process the question to even form a decent answer, "Erm. Er, no, it's not. Oh fuck."

He smirked again, his eyes staring into hers, knowing he'd figured it out. Tracey squirmed under his gaze, attempting to collect her thoughts, "Are you even called Tracey?"

"Look it's not like that Tom. I told you last time you questioned me, I don't know how I got here. I don't have a secret agenda."

"Why would I believe that?"

"Probably because I'm telling the truth, I'm not lying," Tracey cried, "My names Tracey Davis, I'm seventeen, I don't know how I got here. I don't want to disrupt the flow of time so I'm keeping my head down. I do not have any wishes to change anything."

Tom's gaze seemed to search for any hint of a lie from her, but it soon appeared that he couldn't find any elements of falsity to what she said. He simply turned around and returned to the dorm, leaving Tracey way beyond confused.

* * *

Over the next week, Tom didn't speak a single word to her, and during that week she could feel herself getting more and more anxious and pissed off that he wasn't even acknowledging her.

Tracey found herself heading back from dinner alone, conveniently, Tom hadn't been present, but that didn't surprise her. She passed the open door of the potions classroom when she froze, spotting Tom inside working on a potion. She bit her lip considering just continuing to the Common Room when her annoyance welled up inside of her.

She turned on her heel and entered the room, slamming the door shut as she did.

Tracey cleared her throat, "Can you put that into stasis?"

Tom, sensing that she was about to shout at him since she warded the door, waved his wand over the cauldron and replied calmly, "It can be left."

He stood up facing her and waited for her to respond. Tracey didn't smile she simply took a breath and started speaking.

"How dare you ignore me for a week? I confided in you, I told you the biggest secret I've ever had and you just walked away. You haven't spoke to me for a whole fucking week, you just left me wondering whether you're going to say something or tell someone," she ranted, her voice raising several decibals, "Why were you so interested in me anyway? What do you want? Blackmail? Why did you ask me all those questions in the library? Why did you go out of your way to expose me?"

When she finished her breathing was heavy and Tom simply raised an eyebrow, "Can I speak now?"

"Be my guest," she snapped, motioning for him to speak.

For a long moment, he didn't say a thing, he just studied her, looking like he was having some sort of internal conflict. Suddenly he moved towards her, grabbing her arms, but before she she could pull away his lips were on hers. At first she was shocked, but then after a moment she found herself responding, adrenaline still in her system from her rant beforehand.

Suddenly it became more possessive, but even so Tracey found her hands in his hair and her back against the wall of the classroom. It was undeniably brilliant as well as unexpected.

Eventually they stopped, and Tom's hands moved to the wall, very similar to the night that he'd told him he knew about her. Tracey was sure she saw a flash of fear and confusion in his eyes before he dropped his gaze.

"You asked what I wanted," Tom said, his voice low, "You asked why I was so interested in you and it's so difficult for me to fathom."

She waited a moment before he continued, "And the answer is that you fascinate me, Tracey, you fascinate me."


End file.
